


The Art of Moving On

by lifeinapizzabox



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Founders Era, Gen, Godric Gryffindor Mention, Helena Ravenclaw Mention, Hogwarts Founders Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2014-04-09
Packaged: 2018-01-18 19:29:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1440073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeinapizzabox/pseuds/lifeinapizzabox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rowena Ravenclaw hoped to never see the day Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin went far enough that the latter wouldn't stay. When it does come, when Salazar asks her to come with him, she's faced with a decision that will change their friendship forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art of Moving On

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Round 2 of hpendurance on Tumblr. The prompt was "Your character faces a tough decision, one that could affect the rest of their life."

 

“Please, Sal, you are being irrational,” Rowena said. She was leaning against the windowsill in his bedroom, arms folded across her chest. Salazar was moving back and forth from the room to the office attached from it, packing his belongings into an enlarged trunk.

“It isn’t irrational, Rowena. It’s right.” He flicked his wand and a stack of robes folded themselves haphazardly and landed with a thump in the trunk as a result of his haste. It was making him clumsy, careless. The fight hadn’t been good on either of them and this was the last change she had.

She assumed Helga was off trying to calm down Godric. He wouldn’t be packing, no. If anyone would go of course it would be Salazar. Godric considered himself the owner of the school, the most important of any of them, and she had long since stopped pushing back. As long as she could do what she wanted, she was willing to let his ego run free.

Salazar was a whole other story. Lately, she knew he was looking at his best friend and seeing someone who was greedy and wanted to take. She couldn’t count the number of times he told her he just wanted to take it back, just wanted to be heard. Earlier, Godric made his intentions very clear.

“It isn’t right. We can’t deny students an education just because they don’t fit your absurd standards. Blood purity shouldn’t matter.”

“We want the best,” he argued. “Godric can’t see that, he won’t.”

“Look at your classes, Sal. If they’re anything like mine, there are purebloods who struggle to cast basic spells and muggleborns who are incredibly gifted. What do you have to say about that? How do you argue heritage has anything to do with the best?” She raised her voice as he left the room, returning moments later with his arms full of books.

“We live in a political world, Rowena.” He let the books fall from his arms into the trunk, with infinite space and limited time she as sure organization wasn’t a priority. “Talent in school is hardly important. We are training them for the future, and the fact of the matter is wizards who were raised in our world are more likely to succeed regardless of their classes.” He was about to leave again, but she stepped in front of the door. “Please, let me pack.”

“Do you have any respect us, Salazar?” Rowena asked, standing her ground.

“Pulling out the full name to intimidate me? I’m terrified,” he remarked.

“Do you respect Helga? Her acceptance of everyone and the incredible magic she worked in the kitchens?” She was becoming more insistent. “What about Godric? Without him, where would we be? Would we even have the school, the students? It wasn’t solely his idea, but he was the one who pulled everything together. What about that?”

“You’re buying into his ploy. He wants you to see this as his school.”

“You’re dodging the question,” she replied, avoiding his attempt to phase her.

“Fine, yes. I respect Helga. I question what she sees in loyalty and acceptance, but we agree to disagree on some of these.”

“Based on respect.”

“Based on respect,” he agreed.

“And Godric?”

“Once. I did at one point, but he has changed. He is no longer the man I called my friend.”

“We have all changed. Take a look in a mirror. You complain about how he wants it to be his school, but that is exactly what you are pushing for,” she countered. “You are far too similar, this was inevitable.”

“Then tell me, why are you more willing to follow him than you are me?” he asked. He moved half-lean, half-sit on the edge of the chest at the end of his bed. She took a step towards him, knowing he could take the opportunity to return to the office and continue packing. As she suspected, he didn’t move.

“It’s not following,” she answered, only a few feet away. They were about the same height now what with him being as tall as he was. “I know exactly what it would take to bring him down. I can see it. I can see the stress in his stance, how his posture is always strained and doesn’t come as naturally as yours. Godric handles it as well as anyone.”

“He has a hero complex.”

“So do you.”

“I do not. I want to take leadership over a school that isn’t moving forward because he cannot stand to stay in one place for too long. I say things that are far more extreme than they need to be so he will actually listen.” His hands were clenched against the lip of the chest so tightly his knuckles were white.

“You refuse to see the change.”

“I am tired of listening to him.”

“Then talk back.”

“I am trying to, I–” he started to yell.

“You will not take your anger out on me,” she hissed. “You don’t try, you fight with him. Everything becomes a fight. Helga and I work with this school to help it grow. It has its own magic now, but the two of you are too hung up in the old ways and fighting each other to see it.”

“You’re wrong, Rowena. He would never listen. That’s not his way.”

“He used to. When you tried to talk, before you two resented each other, he would listen. You would, too. It was mutualistic then, there was balance.” She took a deep breath and sat next to him on the chest, her feet dangling a few inches above the ground. “I never wanted to lead, I always wanted to teach. Helga was far more in tune with the castle. You and Godric were bickering from the beginning over students, ideals, and leadership. It worked for a while, but it was always going to collapse. Now you have to ask yourself if you are going to be big enough to overcome that.”

“Why do you insist we are so similar?”

“You both wanted to divide the students, yet you value essentially the same ideals. He likes leaders, you like ambition. Bravery and cunning. It’s all means to an end. It’s petty.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is.”

“I have to start over. I can’t do it here. I can’t be around him, not like this.” Salazar took a shaky breath and turned to look at her. “Don’t you see it, Rowena? Don’t you see the monster he is becoming?”

“I see the one you are,” she whispered. “You worry about him, and I worry about you, Sal.”

“Then come with me, Ro. We could see the world, find a new place. We can even start a new school if you still want to teach. There has never been a place like Hogwarts, now we have Beauxbatons and Durmstrang as well. Wizarding education is changing, and we could spread it even further.”

“Salazar, please. Don’t ask me to come.”

“Why not?” he asked, standing. “We would be incredible. We would take the world by storm, write the standards of education. There could be dozens of schools created, but we are staying and keeping our methods to ourselves.”

He moved to the office again, but this time the noises more sounded like he was looking for things rather than the randomness of him just grabbing his belongings. Rowena crossed her legs while she sat, looking down at the wood beneath her.

There was something to it, spreading education. In her youth, she had dreamed of seeing the world. It didn’t get her very far, she had been too tempted by the idea that became Hogwarts to continue. This was her chance at freedom. Helga would forgive her, and Godric, well he would come to his own eventually. They could really do it.

At the same time, his request made her so angry. She was happy here. She adored her students and had called Hogwarts her home for a long time. He was asking her to give everything up for a plan that might work. Rowena was aware that Salazar would always be her best friend, but Godric would always be his. She didn’t want to be second, to play the game of second best. At Hogwarts, she had her place. She could work behind the scenes, she enjoyed it. She had no desire for the glory Salazar was off to seek. There had been enough when the school started to grow a reputation. It was more of a spotlight than she had ever wanted.

“Look, Ro.” He came back into the room and immediately spread out a map next to her. “We could take a boat off the island and visit Beauxbatons and Durmstrang and then just keep going east.” His finger was tracing a potential trail that made her heart leap with excitement.

“You don’t even know if there is a wizarding population in those areas.” If she was even going to consider this, it had to be practical and thought out. It couldn’t be on a whim.

“There are wizards everywhere, you and I both know that.”

Rowena hesitated, looking at her hands. After a minute, she took her wand out of her cloak. The smooth wood had always felt right in her hands. There had never been any doubt that she was a talented witch. It was inevitable. She could accomplish anything. Yet now she hesitated.

“My daughter is a student here.”

“A student who is 17 and set to graduate in just a couple of months. Helena will be okay, she will understand.”

“She has always understood. I have always put myself, the school, over her. This would be the worst yet.” It wasn’t fair to use Helena as her excuse to stay. He was right, it was too late now. She had missed her chance to be a good parent, and she was genuinely unsure how much contact she would have with her daughter after this year.

“Then we come back. You can come to see her graduate, no one said we could never come back,” he argued. It was clear how much he wanted her to come to offer to return. There was still one question, one that she had to have the answer to.

“I asked you if you respect us, Sal. Helga and Godric of course deserve it, but I have to know. Do you respect me?” Rowena asked, her hands shaking. Her wand was still in her fingers, but she had stopped fiddling with it.

“Of course. More than anyone I have ever met,” Salazar replied immediately. He reached out, gently resting his hands on her own. “I would never have asked you to do this if I didn’t.”

“You used to say that about Godric. You told him that you wouldn’t leave, that part of building our school was that respect. It was the basis.”

“He was my best friend, Rowena. I did, and part of me still does, respect him. It never matched that which I hold for you, though. Your talent is unmatched. You’ve taught me more than I care to admit.”

She laughed a little. Gently removing a hand from his, she used the edge of her sleeve to wipe away the tears running down her cheeks.

“Why do you have to ask that?” This was it. It wasn’t about the respect, it was about if his respect would change.

“Sal, you’ve assumed since we started this that all four of us were purebloods.” Rowena put her hand back down on top of his, looking up to meet his eyes. “I never saw reason to correct you, it was harmless. It was harmless until about six months ago what you started talking about exclusivity. How even having mixed heritage would barely be enough.”

“What are you saying? You think that will change things if Godric or Helga had a different blood type? He has been as horrible to me as I am him, and Helga isn’t in here. I’m not going to have some reckoning because one of the people who I once called a friend–”

“I can’t come,” she interrupted. “I can’t come, Sal. I brushed off the things you said about success because I have the confidence to look in the mirror and know I am incredible. That being said, I am also not an exception. I raised Helena on my own.” He tried to respond, but she shook her head. “You don’t know that I was raised alone, too. My mother was a muggle in a town with a very small wizarding community. Her twin brothers were both magical, so she knew, but I was never involved in the magical world until I was much older. I had really only been an active part of the wizarding world for a few years in when I met you.

“I always assumed my father was a wizard, but she would never tell me. It was clear that her line had some trace of magic at some point what with having muggleborn twins and the rare ancestor who was more than likely magical, but in the end, nothing is confirmed.”

“It doesn’t change anything, Ro. You are still incredible. You are an exception.” His eyes gave him away, though. It did change things. He hadn’t even thought for a second she would be the one with mixed heritage of the four, and now he was trying to excuse it.

“I can’t be an exception, Sal. I see my students, and I know that each and every one of them has equal potential regardless of where they come from. I don’t even ask.” She was angry, so angry. Watching Godric and Sal fight had always made her angry at the pair but nothing like this.

“It doesn’t matter. I swear. I can try and change, I can–”

“I have more important things to do than change your mind, Salazar. Go. Run away. Just remember, you are a coward, afraid of things you do not understand. You judge instead of learning,” she snapped, ripping her hadns from his tightening grasp. “That will always be your downfall.”

“In a year. I can come back, I can show you a difference. What about then?”

“Does it eat you alive? Does it destroy you to know that not only am I more talented than you will ever be, but I’m also not a pureblood?” Rowena jumped off the chest, wand raised.

He opened his mouth to speak but words didn’t leave his lips. It didn’t matter. His answer was all over his face. She knew she was right. She knew it would destroy him. She doubted that he would come back in a year, but it didn’t matter as long as that fact haunted him.

“I’m just as talented as you.”

“Your strengths are different. When it comes to magic, magical theory, deuling, I will always best you. You and I both know that muggleborns are looked down upon, and you are no better than any of those who would try and get to me as a child through petty name calling. I say my father is a wizard to dodge that, but more likely than not, it isn’t true. So say it. Say what you said to Godric about allowing muggleborns in. Call me your names. You can’t hurt me.”

“Ro, it’s different with you.”

“You can’t pick and choose, Sal. Do it. Call me a _mudblood. Toss me out of this school._ ” She was shaking, burning to hex him in a way she never had before. She wasn’t violent, but this was different. Her fury had caused her tears to come back, but her vision was already blurred around the edges. “You say you were extreme in order to get him to see, but you weren’t were you? You’ve lied to me, and you have ripped this school apart. We will have a lot of damage control to take care of, so the sooner you leave the better.”

“Don’t play mind games with me. You put words in my mouth, you don’t give me a chance to justify anything.”

“It’s not a game, Salazar, and you have justified everything once with lies. I am not staying to hear any more.”

With that she walked out. She flicked her wand to close the door behind her then pulled her robes tightly around her.

“Ro–”

She couldn’t be here. She had to go somewhere, anywhere but these rooms. She had to get as far away from him as she could before she lost her control and broke down. In minutes, she was in the kitchens, tucked into one of the corners, knees to her chest, head tucked in her arms.

The house elves ignored her, but she suspected one went off to find Helga as within minutes a comforting arm was draped around her shoulders, a hand gently stroking her arm.

“Is everything all right, Rowena?” she asked.

“He’s gone, Helga. He isn’t coming back.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“He asked me to come. I told him to go,” she whispered.

“I don’t believe for a second it was that simple,” Helga replied.

“Godric is lucky.”

“Why?”

“He said goodbye months ago. I believed I would still have a friend.”

“You told him.”

“He told me it didn’t matter.”

“Then why are you here?” she asked.

“Because it does. It does and it always will.


End file.
